Not many new families moved into Ridgeway during the year, and a June moving was something of an event.  The children found a little group of folk watching the green van backed up to the gate.  Two colored men were carrying in furniture, and an old lady with her head tied up in a towel was sweeping off the narrow front porch.

“Gee, she’s got a parrot!” cried a ragged, redheaded little boy who was trying to walk on top of the sharp pickets.

He was barefooted and the pickets were very sharp, so when the moving—­van man, having put down the parrot and its cage on the porch, pretended to run straight toward him, the boy lost his balance and fell.  He was up in a moment and running down the street as fast as though the furniture man were really chasing him.

“Sister!” Brother spoke excitedly.  “That’s the little boy I told you about.  We saw him downtown, Louise and I, when we were buying things for the fishpond for my birthday; remember?  Only he didn’t have a rag on his foot today.”

“He used to be in my class at school,” said Nellie.  “Oh, look at all the boxes of books!”

Brother meant to ask Nellie what the redheaded boy’s name was, but she had danced out to the van to see how large it was inside, and when she came back Brother had forgotten his question.

“My father says an old lady is going to live here,” volunteered Francis Rider, a freckle-faced lad of ten or twelve.  “She lives all by herself, and she doesn’t like noise.  Her name is Miss Putnam.”

Neither, they were to learn, did Miss Putnam like company, especially that of boys and girls.

When the last piece of furniture had been carried in, and the van had driven creakingly off down the street, the old lady, with her head tied in the towel, was seen approaching the fence.

“That’s Miss Putnam,” whispered Francis.

“Get off that fence!” cried Miss Putnam, brandishing her broom.  “Get off!  I’m not going to have my fence broken down by a parcel of young ones.  Go on home, I tell you!”

The children scrambled down and scattered like leaves.  Francis, when he was a safe distance up the street, put out his tongue and made a face at Miss Putnam.  The old lady continued to stand by the gate and shake her broom threateningly as long as there was a child in sight.

“The Collins house is rented at last,” said Daddy Morrison at the supper table that night.  “I came through there on my way home from the station, and there was a light in the kitchen window.  I wonder who has taken it?”

“I know, Daddy,” answered Louise quickly.  “An aunt of Mrs. Collins has rented it.  She is a Miss Putnam and she makes lovely braided rugs for the art and craft shops in the city.  Sue Loftis told me.”

“Well, she’s cross as—­as anything!” struck in Brother severely.  “She chased us all off her fence this morning; didn’t she, Betty?”

“Yes, she did,” nodded Sister.  “And we weren’t doing a thing ’cept watch her move in.  Francis Rider stuck out his tongue at her, and she called him a ‘brat.’”